


Trust is Built with Consistency

by Dacelin



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angels, Armageddon, Demons, Fluff, History, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 13:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19830826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dacelin/pseuds/Dacelin
Summary: Long ago, Aziraphale met a demon.They shouldn't have become friends. They shouldn't have had enough in common to even like each other.But they kept meeting...Five encounters in history on the way to becoming ineffable husbands, and one time afterwards.





	Trust is Built with Consistency

**Author's Note:**

> Several people requested I post this as a stand-alone story. It's Chapter 33 from [Serpent Delivery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054990/chapters/45262585) but it works entirely out of context.
> 
> The only thing you need to know is the events of _Good Omens_ happened in 1999, because... reasons.
> 
> I might do a second of these from Crowley's POV if I can think of some incidents that don't promptly turn into multi-page stories. (I have a problem with length... and I love watching these idiots stumble through history so much.)

**869 AD**

The script was fairly simple. King Edmund of East Anglia was to be tortured, then beheaded for refusing to renounce the name of Christ. His head would be found by his loyal subjects, protected from harm by a wolf.

It was a two-angel mission. One to guide the discoverers to the corpse, the other to keep the wolf behaving properly.

Aziraphale privately thought they’d be better off preventing Edmund from being martyred. But at least the job sounded fast and simple. He’d even told Crowley, who was passing through town following Ivar's army, that he could meet him for supper once he was done.

Of course trouble arose. The other angel got called away last minute and Aziraphale was left to handle the whole business himself. 

Edmund was beheaded right on schedule. The wolf showed up on cue. But the party of body-hunters got entirely lost, so the afternoon dragged on past what Aziraphale felt was an appropriate time to keep a busy angel waiting.

As the Hollywood saying would go, ‘Never work with children or animals’, and Aziraphale was finding this to be aggravatingly true. If the wolf would just behave itself and lie quietly with the head, he could have gone off and fetched the searchers. But the wolf wouldn’t stop trying to eat the corpse or leave. Aziraphale was left wondering how much longer he was supposed to hang around the woods.

Crowley wasn’t feeling at all helpful. He’d come looking for Aziraphale, but he was enjoying the sight too much to do anything but sit on the sidelines and crack jokes.

Aziraphale resolutely ignored him and tried to talk higher sense into the wolf. It wasn’t going well. And the rest of nature wasn’t helping.

Every time he got the wolf nicely positioned with the head between her paws and her chin resting on the king’s forehead, the flies would descend and Aziraphale would have to wave them away frantically. He couldn’t have maggots on a martyr’s corpse.

Worse, several magpies had arrived and were going for the eyes. And while Aziraphale dealt with the birds, the wolf would start gnawing on Edmund’s ear. All the while, the head was getting steadily riper and Aziraphale’s temper was growing frayed.

“This reminds me of Daniel. Do you remember that?” Crowley asked gleefully.

That was back when they were still thwarting one another. Aziraphale had been assigned to make sure a cellar filled with lions did not eat a nice man who’d been obliged to spend the night there. Crowley had been tasked with seeing that the lions got their meal.

Being Crowley, he’d interpreted his orders as heckling Aziraphale into losing control of the lions. 

They result had been the two of them arguing loudly, while Daniel, who was supposed to spend the night praying for God’s deliverance, grumbled at them to ‘get a room’. At which point they’d snapped at him, Aziraphale had lost one of the lions, and it had lunged at Crowley.

The demon had shrieked, made a pass with his hand, and transformed the lion into a cat.

This seemed much easier. They turned the rest of the lions into cats. The cats spent the night hunting mice. Daniel slept. Aziraphale and Crowley caught up on gossip.

How long Aziraphale would have been stuck in the woods, he wasn’t sure. But abruptly Crowley sat bolt upright, tasted the air with his tongue, and fled.

Aziraphale had learned after five millennia to take Crowley’s warnings of danger seriously. It would have been nice (albeit un-demonlike) if he’d ever included Aziraphale in his running away plans. But as usual, Aziraphale was stuck where he was, and the demon was long gone.

Aziraphale braced himself for whatever force of Heaven or Hell was about to descend on him.

Hell, it turned out. “What’s this?” a demon rumbled hungrily as he slouched into view. “A little angel all alone?” Behind him, half a dozen more demons stalked out of the underbrush.

Aziraphale rose, reaching for a sword he hadn’t had for thousands of years, but still sought at moments like this. 

The leader of the party laughed, drawing closer with a hungry gleam. “Oh, don’t be like that. We’ll have some fun first. You might even enjoy it…”

“Onward, soldiers of the Lord!” Came a booming voice from somewhere nearby. “Hurry up yea ranks of Heavenly Hosts. Hasten! We must join our comrade. Where be he? Hark! Is that sulfur I doth smell? Loose your celestial weapons! We mow down the hordes of Hell this day!”

The demons bunched together, some of the smaller ones backing toward the edge of the clearing.

The voice of the celestial commander continued calling out encouragement and orders to the legions of Heaven approaching the clearing. 

Several demons broke and ran. The leader tried to hold the others together, but they seemed to lose critical mass for what the demons felt was acceptable odds. The entire party vanished as fast as they’d come.

Crowley stepped out of concealment. “We'd better go before they catch on,” he said in his normal voice.

“I can’t leave until the humans find the body,” Aziraphale protested.

Crowley blessed irritably, then raised his voice and shouted, ‘Here! Here! Here!’ until the bumbling humans finally found where they were supposed to be, and two relieved supernatural beings made a quick get-away.

“Piled it on a bit thick, didn’t you?” Aziraphale asked when they were drinking afterwards.

Crowley scowled. “Next time I’ll just leave you to Ligur then, alright?”

“I am grateful,” the angel insisted. “Thank you.”

The demon scoffed. “I have to keep you around. If you get killed, they send a new angel and it’ll take me centuries to corrupt another one.”

Crowley mumbled he had to check something outside and left the tavern. It took Aziraphale a while to realize he’d been stuck with the bill.

* * *

**1033 AD**

Apocalyptic predictions were all the rage. It had been 1,000 years since nailing people to crosses had been in vogue, and many felt 1,000 years was a good enough wait. The apocalypse had to be at hand!

Aziraphale loved it. He loved the doomsday criers in the streets. He collected all the pamphlets. He sat down with dozens of prophets to get their take on the signs of the coming end.

It was the most fun he’d had in centuries, right up until his superiors demanded his attention.

“The demons are massing,” the Archangel Barachiel gushed. “It’s come at last! A thousand years sooner than originally planned, but if the Adversary wants to hasten his downfall, who are we to stop him?”

“Umm,” said Aziraphale in the most articulate way he could manage. He was thinking about how he’d only just acquired the first three volumes of Al-Zahrawi’s medical encyclopedia. And the interesting new foods that were pouring into the area thanks to the Turkic Migration. And the stray cat he’d started feeding.

“I know! The coming end must leave all the faithful breathless! We’ll need you among our ranks. Leading the way since everyone else is coming from Heaven, and we don’t know how to get to our appointed place of battle.” She clapped him on the shoulder. “Grid yourself in the armor of righteousness and sharpen your blade! Tomorrow we ride!” 

Aziraphale sighed and went to see if his armor was rusted or missing from its last use, and if the blacksmith would loan him a sword. 

**~**

Aziraphale was not thrilled to be shoved to the front of a column of Heavenly warriors. This was ridiculous. They could have just read a map. But no… they had to drag him on an all-day wilderness march. He was ready to smite any demon he came across for causing this interruption to his life. 

They didn’t quite manage the element of surprise. The demon horde had sentries keeping watch. They shrieked a warning and the forest erupted with the forces of darkness.

As Aziraphale swept down on a crowd of threatening, roaring faces, one familiar demon caught his attention.

Crowley was standing on the edge of the crowd. Unarmed, alarmed, and alone. His eyes darted between Heaven, Hell, and the surrounding underbrush, clearly calculating his odds as swift as he could. His eyes locked on Aziraphale, and he charged the angel.

Aziraphale had barely landed when the serpent darted up his leg, under his tunic, and lodged itself against his breastplate. He faltered for a second, feeling a rush of fear that he was about to be bitten. But then a demon leveled a sword at him, and he was much too busy to remember he was harboring a stowaway. 

The battle lasted two days. Aziraphale hated every second of it. Once upon a time he’d been a soldier in the celestial army, but he didn't think he’d enjoyed even it then. He just wanted to sit down with a nice book and watch the sunset. Not stab things which probably didn’t want to be fighting him anymore than he did them.

The Heavenly Host was thorough about it. They chased down every demon they could find. “No survivors!” They roared. “Evil must be smited down to the last.”

Aziraphale felt this was unkind, but he kept silent. While the hunters were snuffling around, insisting they could still smell a live demon, Aziraphale convinced one of the captains that he wasn’t needed anymore and flew a hasty retreat. 

“Are you alright, Crowley?” He asked when he thought he’d gained enough distance.

The serpent poked his head out of Aziraphale’s tunic collar. “Two days of being jostled against divinely blessed armor is as miserable as you’d expect.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said politely. “Whatever were you doing there?”

“Idiots decided the apocalypse was happening and then couldn’t find the starting point for their prophesied ride.” Crowley snorted his disgust. “I was perfectly happy in that nice little fishing village, but, noooo. I have to help direct traffic to bloody Armageddon.” He looked up at Aziraphale. “And why were you there? You said you didn’t do the soldier routine anymore.”

“The same reason as you,” the angel replied gloomily. “They needed a local guide. And they expected me to fight once we got there.” He shuddered. “Can you imagine if I’d been struck?”

“You were.”

Aziraphale faltered, losing quite a bit of altitude. “I was?”

“Several times. Kept me very busy trying to keep you from bleeding all over me.” The serpent grumbled and retreated beneath the armor. 

“Crowley… you healed me?”

“Well, what else was I supposed to do? I needed a ride out of there.”

“Crowley…”

“Are we almost at your village?” The demon snapped. “I need to wash the celestial scent off before someone comes looking for me.”

They shared several bottles of wine that night and swore to avoid any more stirrings of Armageddon. 

When Aziraphale awoke, the demon was long gone.

He’d taken all the leftover wine.

* * *

**1499 AD**

Aziraphale tried not to tremble – though he couldn’t say if it was from anger or disbelief or something more. How could Crowley…?

His superiors had sent him to Spain to assess if this Inquisition business could be sorted out. Reports were conflicted on whether or not it was doing the work of the church. Rumors from agents in proximity to Hell had heard whispers of a demon apparently claiming responsibility. Aziraphale, it was hinted, should see if he couldn’t get the demon to vacate Spain at the very least (life at best) while they sorted out quite why humans had latched onto the idea of spreading the gospel with such bloodthirsty enthusiasm. Again. 

The plan was ineffable, Aziraphale had to remind himself many times, when he saw what the humans were doing to each other. And he’d been given no orders to end this immediately in a burst of divine fire? He sent a memo to the home office, performed a large quantity of small miracles around town to allay some of his guilt, then went looking for the demon responsible.

The longer he hunted, the more he thought through his initial distress. This wasn’t Crowley’s style. He was far subtler than this. More a demon of small miseries than this sort of atrocity. 

No, he couldn’t believe Crowley would cause this. Not intentionally at least.

The sight of the demon when he finally tracked him down confirmed his better judgment. 

Crowley was slumped at a table at an outside café, so many bottles strewn around him that Aziraphale felt sure his corporation’s liver was done for. The demon’s head was on the table, his arms flung over his neck.

Aziraphale sat down across from him and waited.

Crowley awoke eventually. It took another length of time before he focused on Aziraphale. “I didn’t do it,” he slurred, his words ending in a long and ill hiss.

“I know, my dear,” Aziraphale said quietly.

“Said I did,” Crowley went on thickly. “Sent me… ‘commenda… tions… tha’s how I found out…” He pawed at the table in quest for more wine.

Aziraphale waited.

“Why…” Crowley asked slowly. “Why’d we let ‘em out of the Garden?” He slumped forward on the table and back into unconsciousness.

Aziraphale took him to a nearby hotel and stayed with him for the next week until Crowley was willing to sober up.

* * *

**1948 AD**

“Crowley!” Aziraphale hammered on the basement flat door. “Crowley! Do get up!”

The demon opened the door, blinking irritably at the angel. “Don’t tell me there’s another world war.”

“Have you been sleeping since the last one ended?”

“It seemed like the sensible thing to do.”

“Then you haven’t seen the news!” Aziraphale shoved his way into the flat. “They’ve been found!”

“What’s been found?”

“The scrolls!”

Crowley stumbled his way to the kitchen and tried the sink. He glared at the faucet until water flowed through the pipes and into a saucepan. He thunked it onto a burner and turned up the heat. Despite the lack of gas, the stove obediently brought the water to a boil.

“Are you listening?” Aziraphale demanded.

“Listening, yes. Understanding, no.”

“Look!” Aziraphale showed him the newspaper. “They’re calling them the Dead Sea Scrolls. They haven’t been seen by human eye in thousands of years. Just think what might be on them!”

“Gossip about your buddies, you mean?” Crowley rooted through the cabinets. “I have no coffee,” he declared as if that was the most important news of the century. “Did you bring coffee?”

“Why would I bring coffee?”

“You brought me coffee one time.”

“I didn’t know that meant I had to bring you coffee every time.”

“If you wake a demon up from a two-year nap, the least you can do is bring coffee.”

“We can get coffee on the way.”

“The way where?”

“Lebanon!”

Crowley blinked. “Is there coffee in Lebanon?”

Giving up the discussion, Aziraphale grabbed Crowley's arm and dragged him from the flat.

**~**

It was long past nightfall when they reached their destination. That was fine with Aziraphale. It was much easier to ask the locks to open so he could read in peace than the ask humans to stop screaming at him so he could read in peace.

Crowley had stopped grumbling after they stopped for falafels. He took care of the locks while Aziraphale encouraged security guards to look elsewhere.

Not all the scrolls were in the shape Aziraphale had hoped for, but they were readable. He read out loud, ignoring Crowley occasionally scoffing at the foolishness of humans.

Aziraphale finished the last of the parchments with a sigh.

“Were you looking for something in particular?” The demon asked.

“Well, a few from my side have been missing for a while. Any clue would be helpful.” Aziraphale lovingly touched a corner of the papyrus. “Mostly… I just wanted to see them.”

“You can’t steal them, you know.”

“No, I know,” Aziraphale said hastily, his eyes still glued on these pieces of times past. 

Crowley caught his hand.

Aziraphale jumped and looked at him.

He was surprised by the sympathy in the demon’s eyes. “It was a bad decade, I know,” he said quietly. “I didn’t like those bombs either. Neither of our sides would dream up anything like what they did. But, Angel, it wasn’t all roses back then either. Remember?”

Aziraphale looked away. He rubbed the tears from his eyes.

Crowley tugged him gently toward the door. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

* * *

**2000 AD**

Aziraphale looked down at the demon sprawled against him.

It was the early morning hours of New Year’s Day. 1999 had given way to 2000. Despite Aziraphale explaining to anyone who would listen that the new Millennium did not start until 2001, the humans were partying as if the end times had come and gone. 

Aziraphale had intended to spend a quiet night with his books, but Crowley had other plans. He’d dragged the angel to a half dozen parties, ducking out of each within a brief time of arriving. Aziraphale trailed him tolerantly through a wild tour of London. By now he’d accepted that if he closed his eyes and prayed hard enough, the car would reach its destination without a trail of dismembered pedestrians in its wake. 

They’d stood at the edge of the Thames and watched the fireworks. They’d plunged into the Soho club scene for cocktails. They strolled through galleries brimming with upcoming artists and musicians. Even Aziraphale had to appreciate their pause for the classical music.

At last Crowley’s fervor wore down and now they were collapsed on the sofa in the backroom of the bookshop, sharing a bottle of wine between them. Aziraphale had grabbed a book, reading archaic prophecies for the new millennia out loud despite Crowley throwing the cork at him. Eventually, the demon curled sleepily against him and Aziraphale settled back for the reading he’d wanted to be doing all along. 

Except he found himself more inclined to study his companion. 

It hadn’t been quite a year since the failed apocalypse. They’d kept near one another ever since. 

The third floor above the bookshop had beckoned as very convenient for the adversaries to watch over each other, and Crowley had moved in. Gradually, Aziraphale’s personal things had migrated upward, his second floor apartment filling up with additional book storage. They hadn’t needed two kitchens or bathrooms, or such nonsense, he reasoned. And he rarely slept unless it was with Crowley. 

They ate out much of the time, although Crowley had started cooking. A few days ago, they’d both gone in search of new pans for the kitchen. Aziraphale had given his input. “It’s your decision, of course,” he’d said, though Crowley had eventually bought what he suggested.

As he studied the demon now, something occurred to him. Something which should have been immediately obvious.

Crowley was sleeping on his back.

Snakes did not go belly-up as a rule. It was far too vulnerable position. And a demon with the heart of a serpent, one who’d done a long tenure in Hell, never showed such vulnerability.

The angel and demon had drifted off together more than a few times over the ages. Sometimes out of boredom if they were trapped in the same place. Or exhaustion after a rigorous bout of work. Frequently, alcohol was involved.

At first they’d slept separately, only gradually migrating closer as time went on. Aziraphale had been prepared to trust the demon much sooner than Crowley was ready to trust the angel. Crowley had been the one to lie stiff and alert all night, claiming to be keeping watch. Aziraphale understood and quietly pushed down any hurt. Hell had done no favors in teaching the demon to trust and relax.

Time was the cure. Time and patience. Eventually, Aziraphale came to almost regret putting in the time when a sleepy demon practically crawled on top of him while he tried to read.

But Crowley still largely slept on his front. It was safer for a swift response or transformation.

Looking at him now, his body melted so comfortably against Aziraphale, his front exposed to attack, his head stretched back leaving his throat unguarded, Aziraphale saw trust embodied.

“Crowley?” He asked cautiously.

The demon opened one eye.

“Are we a couple?”

Crowley exhaled a soft laugh. 

“I mean,” Aziraphale went on worriedly. “We’ve never really talked about it. It just sort of happened. I don’t know if human terminology applies to us, but…”

Crowley propped himself on one elbow. “Angel?”

“Yes?”

Crowley kissed him long and firmly. “Shut up.” He flopped back to his previous sleeping position. “Happy new millennium.”

“Well, it’s not really the new…” Aziraphale trailed off and pulled the demon closer. “Happy new beginning.”

**Author's Note:**

> **Your History/Mythology Lesson Notes**   
> 
> 
>   * **Daniel in the Lions' Den** From the Bible. Daniel was an advisor to King Darius. The other advisors spread lies until he fell out of favor with the king and was dumped in a pit of lions overnight. The lions refused to eat him and Daniel was restored to good graces.
>   * **869** King Edmund of Anglia died in battle to Ivar the Boneless' invading army. Later, a story sprang up saying he was beheaded for his religion and his body was protected by a wolf. I hope the wolf got a meal after.
>   * **1033** Christ was crucified in 33 AD, so a lot of prophets suggested 1,000 years after would be a good time for Armageddon. It didn't happen.
>   * **1499** Did you know the Spanish Inquisition lasted over 300 years?! I didn't know much about it except that [no one expects the Spanish Inquisition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N6OOWtCYQA) until now. The Inquisition was an awful time in history in which people were tortured, sometimes to death, for crimes against the church.
>   * **1948** World War II ended in 1945. Aziraphale and Crowley found the efficiency in which humans had learned to kill masses of other humans alarming. Crowley's talking about both the atomic bombs and the blitz when he mentions the bombs. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of well-preserved scrolls found in the Qumran Caves. They contain large portions of the Hebrew Bible and additional works from the same period, several of which have a lot to say about angels, demons, and nephilim. 1948 was when the discovery of the scrolls was first announced in the papers.
>   * **2000** There were quite a few doomsday prophecies about the new millennium, mostly declaring computers would cause the downfall of civilization. Aziraphale and Crowley laughed all that off. They were very done with apocalypse predictions by then.
> 

> 
> I got the title off a quote website. It is attributed to politician Lincoln Chafee. I know nothing about him, but a glance at his wiki page did not indicate he was anyone terrible. So, there you go.


End file.
